FLEET SCIENCE CENTER SET FOR 2015

Countdown to 2015: Balboa Park Centennial Celebration

About the series: With the planning process for the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition well under way, each month we will look at a Balboa Park institution and its plans for 2015.

There’s one simple thing that delights Reuben H. Fleet Science Center director Jeffrey Kirsch. n “I’m happy when people come here and make a discovery,” said Kirsch, who has guided the Balboa Park institution for more than three decades. n He’s not talking about big discoveries. He’s talking about those small moments when you suddenly make a connection or encounter an unexpected outcome.

“It’s the thrill and the joy of these little discoveries,” Kirsch said. “I try to instill that into our culture here — that minute discoveries are very important to the intellectual growth and, in some sense, the emotional and spiritual growth of people.”

For the 2015 Centennial Celebration of the Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, Kirsh and the Fleet’s exhibits director, Paul Siboroski, have planned a year of discoveries with a new giant-screen movie on the expansion of the Panama Canal and four exhibits: “Imaginate,” “Genome,” exhibits dealing with energy, and Balboa Park’s “Art of Science Learning” project.

“We have the opportunity to do some interesting things on behalf of, and in concert with, the 2015 Centennial Celebration,” Kirsch said. “I think the centennial can be transformative for the entire park and so many of the park’s cultural institutions. There will be some that will be changed markedly.”

The Fleet — one of the park’s most successful institutions in terms of attendance, educational programs and community orientation — is already going through its own changes as Kirsch retires at the end of June and Steven Snyder takes over.

But the 2015 plans have Kirsch’s imprint all over them, as does the Fleet, which under his leadership has dedicated itself to bringing science to the people.

“Science is as much cultural as art is cultural,” Kirsch said. “Science is everywhere you go. Just turn on your TV, or turn on your cellphone. It’s all around us. It’s so much a part of us that people often forget (about it). But it’s a vibrant part of the economy, a vibrant part of innovation. It’s an important aspect of our lives. Our role is to make sure people understand that.”

Centennial exhibitions

The central exhibition for 2015, “Imaginate,” is a traveling exhibit developed by the Ontario Science Centre of Canada. It is organized around five themes, each of which provides a “gateway to innovation” — from “Expect the Unexpected” (looking beyond the obvious and recognizing the value of unexpected outcomes) to “Try, Try and Try Again” (perseverance as a key element of investigation and innovation).